Examination of Witness(Questions 60-79)
BARONESS ASHTON
OF UPHOLLAND
MONDAY 2 DECEMBER 2002
60. Minister, your colleagues will tell you
that I am the Member of Parliament least interested in sport in
this whole Parliament. What does concern me, having had four children
go through this stage, is that we are still at this stage where
we have not extensively and seriously looked at how you induct
young children into physical activities at school which they enjoy
and which suit their needs. Many of us have had to put up with
having children who do not like soccer or do not like hockey and
it just seems to me that so little research is being done on the
fact that so many children look back on their early school years
hating the form of physical activity they are asked to take part
in and try and overcome those barriers so that people actually
enjoy it from a very young age. There is something dreadfully
wrong with this country when so many children are put off physical
activity, physical education and sport so early. Should your Department
be doing something about this rather than being so complacent?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) We are not complacent
at all. I thought when I gave the rendition of non complacency
I was not complacent.
61. I do not see any new ideas coming out of
the Department?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) Well, if you look at
what I have said, we want 75% of young people to have two hours
of sport. We want the school sports co-ordinator and the special
sports colleges to be offering schools all over the country—
62. Minister, we know that. This Government
is famous for its focus groups, focus groups for three to five
year olds to find out what they really like, it is not that difficult,
is it?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) I think you will find
if you look at primary education, and I do not know how old your
children are—
Chairman: A bit older than that.
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) Okay.
Jeff Ennis: Fifty four.
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) If you look at primary
education I think what you will find is the programmes which have
been done for primary school teachers, which include the provision
of a bank of sports equipment, have actually developed the sporting
and PE facilities for children much more fully than they were.
I do think for our primary school children, they are having more
opportunity and there is a lot more after school sport activity
going on as well.
Chairman
63. Will you write to this Committee about what
new work is going on?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) I will,
indeed. What I would say to you is the issue is much more difficult
when children get into secondary school when trying to provide
a variety and trying to get the real opportunities is really important.
I think the issue is less so in primary now than it was five years
ago, perhaps. It is an issue we need to address in terms of developing
support for children right the way through but to give that choice
and variety, which I could not agree more with you on, is absolutely
crucial. In a sense at primary school those opportunities are
beginning to be created, it is the secondary schools where one
has to be clear about the opportunities you are giving children
right the way through.
Chairman: We live in hope.
Mr Chaytor
64. Minister, you spoke earlier about the need
to co-ordinate education and childcare and co-ordinate the different
programmes that are running currently. If a community or a neighbourhood
has a Sure Start programme, what else is provided if it also then
gets an Early Excellence Centre and a Neighbourhood Nursery? What
do you think are the defining characteristics of each of the three
main programmes?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) The Early
Years Education programme is perhaps the simplest because that
is about provision for every family which wants it of Early Years
education. Two and a half hours a day of nursery education for
every child provided through the public, private and voluntary
sector so that by 2004 any three year old will be able to find
in the neighbourhood the kind of Early Years education I have
described. In terms of childcare it is about developing a childcare
system which does two things. One is provide support—I have
described—for the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods by actually
physically providing that childcare and helping businesses to
survive and supporting the voluntary, private and public sector
to provide it in other places. The third element, the Sure Start
model, is about health and family support because Sure Start was
based originally very much around the Department of Health and
they are still very involved with it in terms of bringing together
that early support. That begins at conception. So, for example,
for Sure Start the reduction of the number of women who smoke
during pregnancy is a target we have to hit. For Early Education
it is about that universal provision.
65. If I have—as I do in one part of my
constituency—an Early Excellence Centre, why is the Early
Excellence Centre not the basis for the family and parental advice
that you have just described? Why does a Sure Start programme
have to be located four streets away?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) I think that is precisely
the issue we are trying to address by the integration. What Sure
Start managers and Early Excellence Centre managers were saying
to us was there was a greater need to pull them together. It may
well be that within your constituency the answer is to bring the
Sure Start programme physically where the Early Excellence Centre
is or vice versa, I do not know the physical lay-out. That would
be, if you like, a very good model of what we now call a Children's
Centre.
66. Can I just get this right. This language
is not altogether familiar to me. We have got Early Excellence
Centres, we have got Sure Start programmes, we have got Neighbourhood
Nurseries and now we are going to have Children's Centres. That
seems to me an increase in the number of programmes, not a reduction
or co-ordination?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) The idea is what we
will have under one badge is something called a Children's Centre
which will be the physical location which will bring together
Sure Start and Early Excellence Centres.
67. What about Neighbourhood Nurseries?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) There will always be
a need for locally based Neighbourhood Nurseries. Some of them
will become, by the fact that they enhance what they are doing,
Children's Centres.
68. Will the Neighbourhood Nurseries either
be nurseries attached to schools or primary health care nurseries?
Can they both be defined as Neighbourhood Nurseries?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) Neighbourhood Nurseries
could be based around the public, private or voluntary sector.
The point is that they are designed specifically to support the
neighbourhood. The ones we are involved in deeply are those that
we want to support in particular areas.
69. Not all nurseries, therefore, are Neighbourhood
Nurseries? Not all private or school based nurseries are Neighbourhood
Nurseries?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) No, what you have got
is a variety at the moment. 35,000 settings, for example, providing
Early Years education, some of which will be private, some public,
some voluntary. What you have is a nursery provision which traditionally
has been provide by public, private, voluntary sector and that
continues. What we are trying to do is make sure that when we
integrate support we need to get at the Sure Start model together
with the kind of family support, Early Years and Childcare and
we give it one name, the Children's Centre.
70. So the Neighbourhood Nurseries, how will
they be funded? Where will the funding be located?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) Neighbourhood Nurseries
are part of the programme we have within the spending review.
We are building those up at the moment. We have 91.
Chairman
71. Where do they go, Neighbourhood Nurseries?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) Where?
Chairman: What location?
Mr Chaytor
72. Who controls the funding? The budget for
Neighbourhood Nurseries is centrally controlled?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) It is.
73. It is nothing to do with the Early Years
and Childcare.
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) What I am looking for
is the way in which we can develop this across 150 local authorities
and through the LEAs partnerships on the Neighbourhood Nurseries
as well.
74. You see my point.
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) I do understand.
75. If I am confused, my constituents are going
to be considerably more confused about it.
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) That is right. Part
of the difficulty in that is the transition between the two spending
bodies, so that we are clear about where they are going to end
up. The transition for Neighbourhood Nurseries is not to stifle
locally based nurseries from providing precisely that, locally
based wrap around nursery care with Early Years education, but
that is different from having a fully fledged support system for
families which is what we are calling the Children's Centre.
76. Your Children's Centre is new, are we going
to get a new logo to unify it all?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) Yes.
77. Are we going to get a unified stream either
centrally or through local authorities?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) There are varying degrees
of reports about how many funding streams we have. What I am determined
of is that you bring together the funding steams either at a national
level or through local authorities, so the providers on the ground
access one or possible two streams. I always say this, I pay enormous
credit to Margaret Hodge who grabbed all the different funding
streams and enabled us to provide that kind of support, but she
would be the first to say, and all the other providers would be
the second to say: "We now have to pull it together."
What I am not sure I can pull together into one is necessarily
the funds which come perhaps from the European Union.
78. Will co-ordination of the funding that you
can achieve be in place for the start of the next three years'
funding programme?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) That is my ambition,
yes.
Chairman
79. Before you move off that answer, I think
the Committee is now thoroughly confused about Neighbourhood Nurseries
because what you did not explain, Minister—may I say I thought
David was going to move onto this—we know where Sure Start
occurs, it occurs in the 20% most impoverished neighbourhoods,
we know that, is that where Neighbourhood Nurseries appear?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) It is
in the main where Neighbourhood Nurseries appear.
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